SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Jiansong Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Jiansong Zhang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

CARES: A Conversational AI System for Regulation-Grounded Safety Reporting in Construction Education

Construction safety reporting often relies on manual logs and static templates that provide limited feedback and leave daily activities disconnected from relevant regulations. This paper introduces CARES (Conversational AI Reporting for Enhanced Safety), a conversational AI system that integrates regulatory guidance into daily reporting to support construction safety education. CARES combines proactive multi-agent dialogue, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and automated report generation. The system guides users through reporting tasks, retrieves relevant regulatory passages using hybrid retrieval, and converts conversations into structured daily reports. Regulatory sources and the evolving report are displayed alongside the dialogue to support user review and correction. A preliminary evaluation involving 15 construction management students assessed retrieval quality, response faithfulness, and conversational relevance. CARES achieved an overall faithfulness score of 0.74 and an answer relevance score of 1.00, while initial retrieval ranking remained an area for improvement. These results provide preliminary evidence of the technical feasibility of regulation-grounded conversational reporting. The study highlights opportunities to integrate regulatory knowledge into routine documentation, with future work needed to evaluate effects on report quality, safety awareness, and learning outcomes.

cs.HC

A novel energy-conservation Crank-Nicolson finite element method for generalized Klein-Gordon-Zakharov equations

This article focuses on an energy-conservation Galerkin finite element method (FEM) for the generalized Klein-Gordon-Zakharov (KGZ) equations. This method combines the bilinear finite element method for spatial discretization with the Crank-Nicolson (CN) scheme for temporal discretization, thereby guaranteeing exact conservation of the discrete energy functional. A rigorous theoretical analysis is devoted to deriving error bounds for the fast-time-scale electronic field $u$ and the ion density deviation $φ$. By systematically integrating interpolation estimates, Ritz projection, and a postprocessing technique, the superclose error estimates and global superconvergence are established for $u$ in the $H^1$-norm, even under weakened regularity assumptions on the exact solution. Concurrently, we prove $H^1$-norm superconvergence for the auxiliary variable $ϕ$ ($-Δϕ= φ_t$) and optimal-order $L^2$-norm error estimates for the auxiliary variable $p$ ($p=u_t$) and $φ$. Numerical examples are provided to confirm theoretical results.

math.NA

Rethinking Random Transformers as Adaptive Sequence Smoothers for Sleep Staging

Automatic sleep staging commonly adopts Transformers under the assumption that they learn complex long-range dependencies. We challenge this view by revealing a neglected property of sleep sequences: strong local temporal continuity. We show that a randomly initialized Transformer, without any training, substantially improves sleep staging performance and consistently outperforms heuristic smoothing. We formalize this effect via a Random Attention Prior Kernel (RAPK), showing that random self-attention acts as an adaptive smoother by balancing global averaging and content-based similarity while preserving stage transitions. Using two metrics, the Local Smoothness Influence Index (LSII) and the Weighted Transition Entropy (WTE), we provide evidence that most performance gains in Transformer-based sleep staging arise from architectural inductive bias rather than parameter learning. Our results suggest that sleep staging can be effectively addressed with structure-driven smoothing mechanisms rather than complex dependency modeling, enabling more efficient and edge-deployable healthcare systems for large-scale physiological monitoring.

cs.LG

Maximizing Incremental Information Entropy for Contrastive Learning

Contrastive learning has achieved remarkable success in self-supervised representation learning, often guided by information-theoretic objectives such as mutual information maximization. Motivated by the limitations of static augmentations and rigid invariance constraints, we propose IE-CL (Incremental-Entropy Contrastive Learning), a framework that explicitly optimizes the entropy gain between augmented views while preserving semantic consistency. Our theoretical framework reframes the challenge by identifying the encoder as an information bottleneck and proposes a joint optimization of two components: a learnable transformation for entropy generation and an encoder regularizer for its preservation. Experiments on CIFAR-10/100, STL-10, and ImageNet demonstrate that IE-CL consistently improves performance under small-batch settings. Moreover, our core modules can be seamlessly integrated into existing frameworks. This work bridges theoretical principles and practice, offering a new perspective in contrastive learning.

cs.LG

REFLEX: Metacognitive Reasoning for Reflective Zero-Shot Robotic Planning with Large Language Models

While large language models (LLMs) have shown great potential across various domains, their applications in robotics remain largely limited to static prompt-based behaviors and still face challenges in complex tasks under zero-shot or few-shot settings. Inspired by human metacognitive learning and creative problem-solving, we address this limitation by exploring a fundamental question: Can LLMs be empowered with metacognitive capabilities to reason, reflect, and create, thereby enhancing their ability to perform robotic tasks with minimal demonstrations? In this paper, we present REFLEX, a framework that integrates metacognitive learning into LLM-powered multi-robot collaboration. The system equips the LLM-powered robotic agents with a skill decomposition and self-reflection mechanism that identifies modular skills from prior tasks, reflects on failures in unseen task scenarios, and synthesizes effective new solutions. We propose a more challenging robotic benchmark task and evaluate our framework on the existing benchmark and the novel task. Experimental results show that our metacognitive learning framework significantly outperforms existing baselines. Moreover, we observe that our framework can generate solutions that differ from the ground truth yet still successfully complete the tasks. These findings support our hypothesis that metacognitive learning can foster creativity in robotic planning.

cs.RO

Vision KAN: Towards an Attention-Free Backbone for Vision with Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

Attention mechanisms have become a key module in modern vision backbones due to their ability to model long-range dependencies. However, their quadratic complexity in sequence length and the difficulty of interpreting attention weights limit both scalability and clarity. Recent attention-free architectures demonstrate that strong performance can be achieved without pairwise attention, motivating the search for alternatives. In this work, we introduce Vision KAN (ViK), an attention-free backbone inspired by the Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks. At its core lies MultiPatch-RBFKAN, a unified token mixer that combines (a) patch-wise nonlinear transform with Radial Basis Function-based KANs, (b) axis-wise separable mixing for efficient local propagation, and (c) low-rank global mapping for long-range interaction. Employing as a drop-in replacement for attention modules, this formulation tackles the prohibitive cost of full KANs on high-resolution features by adopting a patch-wise grouping strategy with lightweight operators to restore cross-patch dependencies. Experiments on ImageNet-1K show that ViK achieves competitive accuracy with linear complexity, demonstrating the potential of KAN-based token mixing as an efficient and theoretically grounded alternative to attention.

cs.CV

Sleep Modulation: The Challenge of Transitioning from Open Loop to Closed Loop

Sleep disorders have emerged as a critical global health issue, highlighting the urgent need for effective and widely accessible intervention technologies. Non-invasive brain stimulation has garnered attention as it enables direct or indirect modulation of neural activity, thereby promoting sleep enhancement in a safe and unobtrusive manner. This class of approaches is collectively referred to as sleep modulation. To date, the majority of sleep modulation research relies on open-loop paradigms with empirically determined parameters, while achieving individual adaptation and modulation accuracy remains a distant objective. The paradigm-specific constraints inherent to open-loop designs represent a major obstacle to clinical translation and large-scale deployment in home environments. In this paper, we delineate fundamental paradigms of sleep modulation, critically examine the intrinsic limitations of open-loop approaches, and formally conceptualize sleep closed-loop modulation. We further provide a comprehensive synthesis of prior studies involving five commonly employed modulation techniques, evaluating their potential integration within a closed-loop framework. Finally, we identify three primary challenges in constructing an effective sleep closed-loop modulation system: sensor solution selection, monitoring model design, and modulation strategy design, while also proposing potential solutions. Collectively, this work aims to advance the paradigm shift of sleep modulation from open-loop toward closed-loop systems.

cs.HC

Toward Deployable Multi-Robot Collaboration via a Symbolically-Guided Decision Transformer

Reinforcement learning (RL) has demonstrated great potential in robotic operations. However, its data-intensive nature and reliance on the Markov Decision Process (MDP) assumption limit its practical deployment in real-world scenarios involving complex dynamics and long-term temporal dependencies, such as multi-robot manipulation. Decision Transformers (DTs) have emerged as a promising offline alternative by leveraging causal transformers for sequence modeling in RL tasks. However, their applications to multi-robot manipulations still remain underexplored. To address this gap, we propose a novel framework, Symbolically-Guided Decision Transformer (SGDT), which integrates a neuro-symbolic mechanism with a causal transformer to enable deployable multi-robot collaboration. In the proposed SGDT framework, a neuro-symbolic planner generates a high-level task-oriented plan composed of symbolic subgoals. Guided by these subgoals, a goal-conditioned decision transformer (GCDT) performs low-level sequential decision-making for multi-robot manipulation. This hierarchical architecture enables structured, interpretable, and generalizable decision making in complex multi-robot collaboration tasks. We evaluate the performance of SGDT across a range of task scenarios, including zero-shot and few-shot scenarios. To our knowledge, this is the first work to explore DT-based technology for multi-robot manipulation.

cs.RO

Supporting Construction Worker Well-Being with a Multi-Agent Conversational AI System

The construction industry is characterized by both high physical and psychological risks, yet supports of mental health remain limited. While advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), offer promising solutions, their potential in construction remains largely underexplored. To bridge this gap, we developed a conversational multi-agent system that addresses industry-specific challenges through an AI-driven approach integrated with domain knowledge. In parallel, it fulfills construction workers' basic psychological needs by enabling interactions with multiple agents, each has a distinct persona. This approach ensures that workers receive both practical problem-solving support and social engagement, ultimately contributing to their overall well-being. We evaluate its usability and effectiveness through a within-subjects user study with 12 participants. The results show that our system significantly outperforms the single-agent baseline, achieving improvements of 18% in usability, 40% in self-determination, 60% in social presence, and 60% in trust. These findings highlight the promise of LLM-driven AI systems in providing domain-specific support for construction workers.

cs.HC

Numerical simulation of wormhole propagation with the mixed hybridized discontinuous Galerkin finite element method

The acid treatment of carbonate reservoirs is a widely employed technique for enhancing the productivity of oil and gas reservoirs. In this paper, we present a novel combined hybridized mixed discontinuous Galerkin (HMDG) finite element method to simulate the dissolution process near the wellbore, commonly referred to as the wormhole phenomenon. The primary contribution of this work lies in the application of hybridization techniques to both the pressure and concentration equations. Additionally, an upwind scheme is utilized to address convection-dominant scenarios, and a ``cut-off" operator is introduced to maintain the boundedness of porosity. Compared to traditional discontinuous Galerkin methods, the proposed approach results in a global system with fewer unknowns and sparser stencils, thereby significantly reducing computational costs. We analyze the existence and uniqueness of the new combined method and derive optimal error estimates using the developed technique. Numerical examples are provided to validate the theoretical analysis.

math.NA

MedKAN: An Advanced Kolmogorov-Arnold Network for Medical Image Classification

Recent advancements in deep learning for image classification predominantly rely on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) or Transformer-based architectures. However, these models face notable challenges in medical imaging, particularly in capturing intricate texture details and contextual features. Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) represent a novel class of architectures that enhance nonlinear transformation modeling, offering improved representation of complex features. In this work, we present MedKAN, a medical image classification framework built upon KAN and its convolutional extensions. MedKAN features two core modules: the Local Information KAN (LIK) module for fine-grained feature extraction and the Global Information KAN (GIK) module for global context integration. By combining these modules, MedKAN achieves robust feature modeling and fusion. To address diverse computational needs, we introduce three scalable variants--MedKAN-S, MedKAN-B, and MedKAN-L. Experimental results on nine public medical imaging datasets demonstrate that MedKAN achieves superior performance compared to CNN- and Transformer-based models, highlighting its effectiveness and generalizability in medical image analysis.

cs.CV

Natias: Neuron Attribution based Transferable Image Adversarial Steganography

Image steganography is a technique to conceal secret messages within digital images. Steganalysis, on the contrary, aims to detect the presence of secret messages within images. Recently, deep-learning-based steganalysis methods have achieved excellent detection performance. As a countermeasure, adversarial steganography has garnered considerable attention due to its ability to effectively deceive deep-learning-based steganalysis. However, steganalysts often employ unknown steganalytic models for detection. Therefore, the ability of adversarial steganography to deceive non-target steganalytic models, known as transferability, becomes especially important. Nevertheless, existing adversarial steganographic methods do not consider how to enhance transferability. To address this issue, we propose a novel adversarial steganographic scheme named Natias. Specifically, we first attribute the output of a steganalytic model to each neuron in the target middle layer to identify critical features. Next, we corrupt these critical features that may be adopted by diverse steganalytic models. Consequently, it can promote the transferability of adversarial steganography. Our proposed method can be seamlessly integrated with existing adversarial steganography frameworks. Thorough experimental analyses affirm that our proposed technique possesses improved transferability when contrasted with former approaches, and it attains heightened security in retraining scenarios.

cs.CV

Activation Space Selectable Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

The multilayer perceptron (MLP), a fundamental paradigm in current artificial intelligence, is widely applied in fields such as computer vision and natural language processing. However, the recently proposed Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (KAN), based on nonlinear additive connections, has been proven to achieve performance comparable to MLPs with significantly fewer parameters. Despite this potential, the use of a single activation function space results in reduced performance of KAN and related works across different tasks. To address this issue, we propose an activation space Selectable KAN (S-KAN). S-KAN employs an adaptive strategy to choose the possible activation mode for data at each feedforward KAN node. Our approach outperforms baseline methods in seven representative function fitting tasks and significantly surpasses MLP methods with the same level of parameters. Furthermore, we extend the structure of S-KAN and propose an activation space selectable Convolutional KAN (S-ConvKAN), which achieves leading results on four general image classification datasets. Our method mitigates the performance variability of the original KAN across different tasks and demonstrates through extensive experiments that feedforward KANs with selectable activations can achieve or even exceed the performance of MLP-based methods. This work contributes to the understanding of the data-centric design of new AI paradigms and provides a foundational reference for innovations in KAN-based network architectures.

cs.LG

From Pretext to Purpose: Batch-Adaptive Self-Supervised Learning

In recent years, self-supervised contrastive learning has emerged as a distinguished paradigm in the artificial intelligence landscape. It facilitates unsupervised feature learning through contrastive delineations at the instance level. However, crafting an effective self-supervised paradigm remains a pivotal challenge within this field. This paper delves into two crucial factors impacting self-supervised contrastive learning-bach size and pretext tasks, and from a data processing standpoint, proposes an adaptive technique of batch fusion. The proposed method, via dimensionality reduction and reconstruction of batch data, enables formerly isolated individual data to partake in intra-batch communication through the Embedding Layer. Moreover, it adaptively amplifies the self-supervised feature encoding capability as the training progresses. We conducted a linear classification test of this method based on the classic contrastive learning framework on ImageNet-1k. The empirical findings illustrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance under equitable comparisons. Benefiting from its "plug-and-play" characteristics, we further explored other contrastive learning methods. On the ImageNet-100, compared to the original performance, the top1 has seen a maximum increase of 1.25%. We suggest that the proposed method may contribute to the advancement of data-driven self-supervised learning research, bringing a fresh perspective to this community.

cs.CV

Evaluation of Infrastructure-based Warning System on Driving Behaviors-A Roundabout Study

Smart intersections have the potential to improve road safety with sensing, communication, and edge computing technologies. Perception sensors installed at a smart intersection can monitor the traffic environment in real time and send infrastructure-based warnings to nearby travelers through V2X communication. This paper investigated how infrastructure-based warnings can influence driving behaviors and improve roundabout safety through a driving-simulator study - a challenging driving scenario for human drivers. A co-simulation platform integrating Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) and Webots was developed to serve as the driving simulator. A real-world roundabout in Ann Arbor, Michigan was built in the co-simulation platform as the study area, and the merging scenarios were investigated. 36 participants were recruited and asked to navigate the roundabout under three danger levels (e.g., low, medium, high) and three collision warning designs (e.g., no warning, warning issued 1 second in advance, warning issued 2 seconds in advance). Results indicated that advanced warnings can significantly enhance safety by minimizing potential risks compared to scenarios without warnings. Earlier warnings enabled smoother driver responses and reduced abrupt decelerations. In addition, a personalized intention prediction model was developed to predict drivers' stop-or-go decisions when the warning is displayed. Among all tested machine learning models, the XGBoost model achieved the highest prediction accuracy with a precision rate of 95.56% and a recall rate of 97.73%.

cs.HC

The LDBC Financial Benchmark

The Linked Data Benchmark Council's Financial Benchmark (LDBC FinBench) is a new effort that defines a graph database benchmark targeting financial scenarios such as anti-fraud and risk control. The benchmark has one workload, the Transaction Workload, currently. It captures OLTP scenario with complex, simple read queries and write queries that continuously insert or delete data in the graph. Compared to the LDBC SNB, the LDBC FinBench differs in application scenarios, data patterns, and query patterns. This document contains a detailed explanation of the data used in the LDBC FinBench, the definition of transaction workload, a detailed description for all queries, and instructions on how to use the benchmark suite.

cs.DB

Multi-source adversarial transfer learning based on similar source domains with local features

Transfer learning leverages knowledge from other domains and has been successful in many applications. Transfer learning methods rely on the overall similarity of the source and target domains. However, in some cases, it is impossible to provide an overall similar source domain, and only some source domains with similar local features can be provided. Can transfer learning be achieved? In this regard, we propose a multi-source adversarial transfer learning method based on local feature similarity to the source domain to handle transfer scenarios where the source and target domains have only local similarities. This method extracts transferable local features between a single source domain and the target domain through a sub-network. Specifically, the feature extractor of the sub-network is induced by the domain discriminator to learn transferable knowledge between the source domain and the target domain. The extracted features are then weighted by an attention module to suppress non-transferable local features while enhancing transferable local features. In order to ensure that the data from the target domain in different sub-networks in the same batch is exactly the same, we designed a multi-source domain independent strategy to provide the possibility for later local feature fusion to complete the key features required. In order to verify the effectiveness of the method, we made the dataset "Local Carvana Image Masking Dataset". Applying the proposed method to the image segmentation task of the proposed dataset achieves better transfer performance than other multi-source transfer learning methods. It is shown that the designed transfer learning method is feasible for transfer scenarios where the source and target domains have only local similarities.

cs.CV

Multi-source adversarial transfer learning for ultrasound image segmentation with limited similarity

Lesion segmentation of ultrasound medical images based on deep learning techniques is a widely used method for diagnosing diseases. Although there is a large amount of ultrasound image data in medical centers and other places, labeled ultrasound datasets are a scarce resource, and it is likely that no datasets are available for new tissues/organs. Transfer learning provides the possibility to solve this problem, but there are too many features in natural images that are not related to the target domain. As a source domain, redundant features that are not conducive to the task will be extracted. Migration between ultrasound images can avoid this problem, but there are few types of public datasets, and it is difficult to find sufficiently similar source domains. Compared with natural images, ultrasound images have less information, and there are fewer transferable features between different ultrasound images, which may cause negative transfer. To this end, a multi-source adversarial transfer learning network for ultrasound image segmentation is proposed. Specifically, to address the lack of annotations, the idea of adversarial transfer learning is used to adaptively extract common features between a certain pair of source and target domains, which provides the possibility to utilize unlabeled ultrasound data. To alleviate the lack of knowledge in a single source domain, multi-source transfer learning is adopted to fuse knowledge from multiple source domains. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the fusion and maximize the use of precious data, a multi-source domain independent strategy is also proposed to improve the estimation of the target domain data distribution, which further increases the learning ability of the multi-source adversarial migration learning network in multiple domains.

eess.IV